Before your teeny tiny story. We need to do our homework! First, I must say Thank you to Darling Jess from the Mist who gives me awards and advice about sheep feet, Mama is still the same but these things take time. I may be back for more advice I think.
Patchwork of Life ( wonderful girl) and Nia (my first blog buddy ever), have both sent awards to me over the last few weeks and I want to say a great big thank you. And if you have the time drop in, their work speaks for itself. Lovely.
Sorry it took me so long. Life on the Farmy gets so much busier over the winter. It is not just opening and shutting gates and laying about in the sun anymore. Fresh grass begets dry grass and dry grass becomes hay and must to be Carried. Though I love hanging out in the barn.
These 1950’s half gallon milk bottles were what I found in California. I pretended to buy them for Our John, but he pretended to buy me a hay bailer so I think that is fair! There are six bottles AND a crate. They already have milk in them. Perfect for what lies ahead.
Sush from Pursuit of Happiness sent me an award today! Thank you Sush. Beautiful girl.
Now, I know I am supposed to name 15,000 new blogs for you to check out but instead I promise to upgrade my blog roll. Everyone is so dreadfully busy now. I shall begin this tonight so when you next visit, pop over to the Blog Roll for a look see. “Cop out!” I hear you say. Ah well.
Sawson who is Disguised as a Chef, bless her, went into my new Facebook page with her techno hammer and bashed things about a bit and now it works JUST FINE. So armed with my Katherine Instructions, the Kitchens Garden Project will begin its slow climb out of obscurity on the way to making Vege Gardens sexy again. And we will all start swapping plants with our neighbours and saving all our seeds in case the New Zealand government decides we should not be allowed to store them anymore. Though if they cannot catch a few fellas growing cannabis, I have no idea how they think they are going to outlaw cabbages!
Now, I shall tell you a very short story about when I was kidnapped from my usual solitary Christmas and whisked off to my best friends family Christmas day. By the way I was quite happy to spend Christmas day by myself (click for a quick explanation) but she insisted and so off we went to have Christmas lunch.
The Sister-in-Law and her family lived in one of those posh places in a very posh area. The house had a kind of purposeful dishevelment. That anti keeping-up-with-the-Jonses that is more Jonsey than the Jonses themselves. Well, you know the kind of place. She had three darling daughters who were charging from room to room, as kids do at Christmas, almost knocking us down as we entered through the back door. Screeching with hot breath. They were overjoyed with life. It was late Christmas morning and they had stripped the Christmas tree of its strings of golden decorations and hung them around their necks. They bounced and skidded in all directions with these gorgeous bright golden Christmas decorations flying out behind them. Like dancing golden pearls on dancing summer flowers.
Feeling like the drab orphan, I was shuffled in and introduced to the slightly standoffish Sister-in-Law, who was not charmed to be having an extra person at the dinner table and proceeded to make a big show of sending the hysterical girls off to go and get the Extra Chair. Silence reigned for a moment. I shook her hand and handed her the bottle of champagne I had brought. (Never go to someone’s home to eat with one arm as long as the other.) I noticed that she too was wearing a string of golden baubles. Though the golden balls on her string were a little bigger than the girls and slightly brushed.
“Oh!” I said, searching for conversation as she narrowed her eyes at the label on the wine. “I see that you have joined the girls when they raided the tree, and you are wearing Christmas Decorations too. How fun!” Silence. I trailed off.
I heard a snort like a little pig, from my best school friend behind me. This was answered by the most eye watering swallowed snort of laughter from her brother, who was standing behind his wife the Sister-in-Law. Without warning we were all caught in this terrible tableaux, no-one looking at me, with these two strangled snorts of laughter ringing in the air. I looked back at my best school friend who, fingers to her mouth and eyes wild, whirled around and studied the wall. Her shoulders held at that exact quivering straightness that denotes extreme pressure from within. I turned back to my hostess. Looking straight at me, The Sister-in-Law handed the wine off to the husband behind her. He took it and rushed for the kitchen.
“No,” said the sister in law with an arched brow, drawing herself up to her full and quite daunting height. Her extra chin betraying a certain amount of controlled tension. “These are NOT plastic Christmas decorations.” Her words spat. I took a small step backwards.
” These”, and she tapped the gold baubles around her neck with a manicured fingernail. “are solid GOLD. I have just received them from my husband, for Christmas.” Haughty is one word to describe her Sweep from the room. Disdainful would be another.
“Oh dear.” I said to the room. My best friend was gagging with laughter behind me. Choke, I thought.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
67 responses to “Fabulous Friends and the tiniest Christmas Story. Just for laughs!”
Worth it’s weight in gold! …and I love your milk bottles 😉
Ha ha ha ! Had to be said! c
OH my , what I would have given to be a fly on the wall…if flies giggle! Great story…I was hanging on every word.
Besides all the fun, thank you for your kind words…and anytime!
thank you jess, hope i do not have to send up a flare in the middle of christmas!! c
Ooops! 🙂
I can only hope she didn’t choke on her on self-importance during the meal!
And I also hope that you get to spend Christmas with friendlier folks this year???
!.. I have a little home of my own now and am surrounded in friendly folk!.. thank you janet, hope you are having a great day! c
Solid gold baubles? That looked like Christmas decorations? I’m glad her hubby found it funny! 🙂
I am sure they were hollow in the middle. But hubby did find it funny, He did, his eyes were moist with suppressed laughter for an hour after.. one has to wonder what went on in that marriage! c
Methinks we wear the same shoes, Cecilia. Just so you know, I am adoring your lovely 1950s milk bottles and crate, and IMHO they far outshine a certain lady’s golden baubles. 😉
You asked about installing awards buttons and my friend at Dogear6 wrote instructions for me here; http://pixilatedtoo.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/acceptance-of-an-award/#comments Hope they help you! (Which brings me to a rather painful admission… I lost your award to me and can’t find it anywhere. 😐 )
Oh don’t worry about it.. we will do it all again next year Lynda and I love you the more for your painful admission, have a great christmas.. and just imagine a crate of these bottles landing on your doorstep full of fresh new milk! AH! thank you for the instructions.. c
Can I snort alongside ? … I love this story… you have really cheered me up 😀 😀
You may Snort! Guru! love, grasshopper.
I’m not sure who she was trying to impress, but it doesn’t sound as if anybody at her soiree managed to recognize veddy veddy expensive, brag-demanding gold beads. Good for you, Celie!
What’s better than to show someone for what she is?
Ronnie
I really really did not mean to, I actually thought she was playing along with her kids!! It was just unfortunate really! c
How does one find the facebook page you referenced a few posts ago? I’m all in!
You should be able to see it in the right hand column of this page.. hopefully, unless something has gone wrong again.. c
Methinks the husband bought some baubles and got away with his wife THINKING they were gold until you came along! I can’t imagine another reason for his hysteria!
Hawk eyes!
In that case his sister knew as well apparently, as she was snorting like a horse behind me! Surely not. You have a wicked sense of humour! c
I “heart” those milk bottles.
They are rather special aren’t they and they look grand in my fridge!! c
Ah, milk bottles! We had a compartment, a “milk chute,” built into the exterior wall of our house for the milkman to leave his products without our having to open the actual door. Ah, Celi, you really do make me laugh. Your SIL had that, and so much more, coming! Expected or not, Christmas Day and this is how she welcomes guests? Mary & Joseph got better receptions at inns across Bethlehem.
Excellent, so he put the milk in from outside and you recovered it from the inside? Hmm.. another good idea. We had something like that in a farmhouse for firewood… c
I read your blog most days, but rarely comment–but this cracked me up. And your last one on how not to bake bread. “How not to…” could open an entire series of posts on my blog. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out lots of ways how not to do things–including baking bread. I will never forget the Thanksgiving I was in charge of bringing rolls and I used some yeast that was either too old, or the liquid was too hot…but I ended up with dough golf-balls. Funny now, embarrassing then. Ha!
Hi Melissa, yes the how not to’s are fairly instructive for people like us!! c
The beaded beast obviously had a poor and hollow internal existence if she had to stoop to making such a pompous ass of herself in good company. I can only hope that the laughs everyone else got on the occasion have sustained you into many good follow-up laughs over it yourself, the only possible response to such ridiculousness! Bless you, that woman’s ostentatious finery was outrageously outshone by your delight at thinking she was playing along with the joyful kiddies and therefore far more impressive than she actually turned out to be. I hope she eventually grew up enough to take a dose of childlike wonder once again! If not, maybe you can pop over there and slip her one of those milk-bottles, spiked with something strong enough to loosen up that appalling emotional girdle of hers. Just a thought 🙂
Almost every time i get together with my old school friend one or other of us bring up the gold decorations incident, and roar with laughter again. Thanks Kathryn! c
Hope you didn´t offer to help with the washing up. Goodwill to all men indeed…nasty woman. Her children probably don´t want to spend Christmas with her now anyway! Love the milk bottles, put a few shots of honey in brandy in one with the milk 🙂
Thank you Tanya, to have six of these lovely bottles is quite the find. Hmm honey and brandy in milk, that sound very tempting!! Do I heat the milk? c
That sounds like egg nog 😉
Oh i must make some eggnog!! I keep forgetting! c
I’m often tempted to resume our home milk delivery just so I can get my hands on a few glass bottles. The only problem is that home-delivered milk is so flippin’ expensive! We drink a lot of milk though, so maybe it’s worth considering again. I like your Christmas story, too. Very cute. 😀
I love the glass too Mrs Misk and yesterday my neighbour said that in the old days they got milk at school in miniature glass bottles just like these ones, our eyes both lit up at the thought of finding those bottles again, and using them for cream next year! off on the hunt!! c